How Rhonda Drakeford brought Darkroom to the Royal Docks

Photo Credit: Matt Grayson With the blocks of ABP rising, Crossrail set to arrive in 2019, London City Airport expanding and vast tracts of land sprouting housing developments, no further argument need be

With the blocks of ABP rising, Crossrail set to arrive in 2019, London City Airport expanding and vast tracts of land sprouting housing developments, no further argument need be made that Royal Docks is on the rise.

But there’s evidence in the shadow of the cold concrete cores that the area is becoming more attractive as a place to live and work.

Focussing on the latter, recently ensconced in the raw Brutalist spaces of The Silver Building is designer Rhonda Drakeford.

Joining the likes of menswear creator Craig Green and set builder Block9 at the former brewery, we meet in her studio up the cantilevered staircase of the cultural centre and workspace – a role it will play until it too is redeveloped by Keystone.

Rental increases on the physical space of the latter resulted in her taking the brand online and parting ways with co-founder Lulu Roper-Caldbeck in 2016, eventually moving to east London to do her own thing.

“We’d been working towards becoming more of a brand – going online anyway,” said Rhonda.

“At that point I completely changed the business model to being solely a design brand.

“So it’s now only Darkroom products that I design and sell online – they’re mostly interior products although we do have a range of jewellery as well.

“There’s everything from soft furnishings to ceramics and furniture and we have a range of price levels so we have everything from an entry level tea towel (from £10) up to handmade showpieces.

“We’re quite known for hand-painted finishes but trying to keep things quite accessible.

“We treat it like a fashion show where you have the showpieces but you can get a souvenir as well, like a notebook.

“My style is bold with a sense of restraint.

“I like things to be quite neat – I have an army upbringing and I think that comes through somewhere.

“I also really like mixing things and things that are imperfect – a lot of our products use natural materials so you get quite geometric, mathematical patterns on something quite rough.

“I like working with concrete and terracotta – imperfect things that then get painted onto.”

Her influences range from architecture – “I’ll travel somewhere purely because I like a building” – to the interplay of cultures with bright batik prints created in Europe but popular in Africa a major inspiration.

If Darkroom is all about her, interior design business Studio Rhonda is the flipside – relevant to anyone looking for something inventive to do with their Docklands flat.

“I am a gun for hire,” she said.

“I’ve been working doing interior design for residential clients for a couple of years now having previously done commercial spaces including Darkroom itself.

“One of my major projects was on the eighth floor of a King’s Cross tower block.

“It was a pretty nondescript building with a nondescript interior – a complete blank canvas.

“Four years old, it had an identikit kitchen and bathroom – there wasn’t much to start with, so I ended up starting with the views.

“It had this feeling of the metropolis, there were lots of cranes and big buildings going up, so the main inspiration was the industrial landscape outside.

“It’s all concrete tiles and pastel pinks – a surprising way of doing Brutalism. Playful but rooted in these solid forms.

“The clients were two chefs – they wanted a space that was a showpiece, somewhere they could do events, really out-there.

“They knew my work from Darkroom and they were really happy with what I proposed. I’ve been lucky in that way.

“Each project is very much its own thing. There’s obviously a way in which I work but the space has to be comfortable and work for the client.

“It’s very much conversations with them.

“Another project I did was for a writer – to create a space where someone can write was quite a task.

“I really like to climb inside the psyche of my clients.

“From Darkroom which is very much about me and what I want, to client-based stuff and I really enjoy the two different sides of my brain.

“The cost depends on the project but it’s generally more affordable than you think.

“People think of interior design as a bit of an extravagance.

“But your home is where you go to regroup and recharge your batteries, to relax and entertain.

“There are all of these things your home has to do.

“If that’s thought about correctly, I think the benefits to your life are so profound.”

And there’s a sense Rhonda’s relocation to Royal Docks has also had an impact on her.

She talks of her dislike of modern skyscrapers but admits to warming to the view of Canary Wharf from her window, recalling Blade Runner.

It was an opportunity for passion to flare for the 1964 structure built for the Carlsberg-Tetley Brewing Company.

“I actually worked from home for about a year after we closed the shop just to try and work things out,” she said.

“It was a bit of a shock. It all happened very quickly and was expensive.

“But it was an opportunity to change things too

“I came down to The Silver Building with a guy who does metalwork for some of my interior projects to collect a piece.

“He works in one of the warehouses out at the back and said I should come and look at the space.

“I’d kind of been thinking I was ready to get a studio space and I completely fell in love with the building.

“That community thing was a big for me too – there were loads of people here with two degrees of separation.

“For me, I really like the honesty of the building.

“There’s a certain amount of: ‘Fuck you,’ about it. It’s brave.

“It’s concrete heaven and it had spaces with light.

“If you’re working on design, having good light is essential and all the breakout spaces are amazing.

“We’re quite often doing quite big projects and so to use the bigger areas is great.”

For those eager in closer contact with Darkroom’s style, Rhonda will be running two-hour decorative plate painting workshops at Sample Christmas Market on Greenwich Peninsula on December 1-2 at 11.30am, 2pm and 4.30pm allowing participants to create their own pieces. Tickets cost £35 and should be pre-booked.